Year in Review 2020: TV

Best Shows I Watched Most of in 2019 but Then Waited a Year to Watch the Last Episode of for Reasons

• A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 3)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: The Baudelaires (Malina Weissman, Louis Hynes, and Presley Smith) finally get some answers—but at what cost?
  
  So, the two-part “Penultimate Peril” sent me into an emotional spiral for reasons that I still don’t really know for sure, which I then tried to write my way out of, resulting in the biggest writing project I’ve ever failed to finish. But it’s a good show and probably that won’t happen to you if you watch it, so you should.
  
  

Best Shows I Missed in 2019 Because I Spent 4 Months Watching The X-Files and Then Didn’t Feel Like Watching Anything Else For a While

• GLOW (Season 3)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: Seriously there are too many characters on this show. They’re in Vegas, drama happens.
  
  So, here’s a hot take: It’s good (narratively) that GLOW got canceled. Given that our three leads were going to be starting out season 4 in completely different places, it was unclear how the show was going to do all of them justice (let alone all of the supporting cast) without coming up with some contrived way of bringing them all back together again that wouldn’t have really been satisfying (my prediction, for what it’s worth, is that Ruth would get cast in Sam and Justine’s movie, and then the distributor would drop out at the last minute so they’d have to go to Debbie and Bash’s TV network to get it out; but I have no idea how they were going to get anyone else involved).
  
  As it is, I feel pretty ok with how the show ended. Season 3 pretty much wraps up most of the major character arcs: Debbie (Betty Gilpin) and Bash (Chris Lowell) are finally being taken seriously, enough to forge their own path, Sam (Marc Maron) and Justine (Britt Baron) have somewhat of a healthy, supportive relationship and are making a movie together, and Ruth (Alison Brie) is left in the dust, which honestly kind of fits the character even if it’s not necessarily where we wanted her to end up. (Wait, was that a synopsis?)
  
  That being said, obviously it sucks for everyone who was working on the show, and I wouldn’t want to celebrate all of them being out of a job just because it fit my idea of what makes good storytelling.
  
  
• His Dark Materials (Season 1)(BBC1)
  Synopsis: A young girl, Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), finds herself on an epic adventure after her uncle (James McAvoy) makes a potentially world-changing discovery and children start going missing.
  
  So, I’m kind of conflicted about including this here. There are some problems with this show: it starts with text-only exposition that doesn’t even answer most of the questions you would actually have about this world, and just starts piling on from there. There are little things that any show like this might have a problem with, like some less-than-great dialogue or the fact that the show forgets that dæmons exist pretty much any time they don’t have dialogue or aren’t directly relevant to the scene (presumably to save money). Then there’s the fact that they can’t decide if Lyra is smart or not, so in one scene she’ll ask a very obvious, childish question, and in the next she’ll be super intuitive and clever, which is the kind of inconsistent characterization that will hopefully get ironed out in later seasons.
  
  Possibly the biggest thing is some noticeably bad editing, if only because I don’t usually notice that sort of thing, so it must be really bad. Better editing could have also made up for some of the writing problems, with some scenes feeling redundant and pointless (the one that stands out is the scene between Lee Scoresby and Serafina Pekkala where they have the exact same conversation they just had like 30 minutes ago). Both the editing and writing issues seem to snowball in the later episodes, which makes me think they didn’t quite know how they were going to get to where they needed to go, or maybe didn’t even know where that was.
  
  All of these are relatively small problems on their own, but they add up, and they’re almost distracting enough to ruin the show, or at least bump it down to honorable mentions. What saves it, I think, are the two lead actresses: Keen is remarkably grounded in every scene, keeping the audience invested in her story, while Ruth Wilson’s Mrs. Coulter is either complex or severely disturbed (or both), but compelling either way. Together they serve as the magnetic poles of the show, drawing attention away from all the distracting mistakes. I think there’s a solid chance that it’ll all fall apart in season 2, so I wanted to register my praise here while I could still justify doing so.
  
  Also, the way Iorek says “bear” is pretty great.
  
  
• Legion (Season 3)(FX)
  Synopsis: David (Dan Stevens) enlists the help of a time-traveler (Lauren Tsai) to try to go back and stop Farouk (Navid Negahban) from possessing him as a baby, while Syd (Rachel Barrett) and the rest of the team try to stop him from destroying the world in the process.
  
  This season has Superorganism, Hamish Linklater singing “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding” while his frozen body is floating through space, Jason Mantzoukas, and even more time travel than last season. It’s pretty great. The ending feels a bit rushed, but is ultimately satisfying (at least for me), which is kind of remarkable in and of itself for such an ambitious show.
  
  
• Locke & Key (Season 1)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: After their father (Bill Heck) is murdered, the the three Locke children (Connor Jessup, Emilia Jones, and Jackson Robert Scott) and their mother (Darby Stanchfield) move into the Locke ancestral home in Matheson, where they find a series of magical keys and start to uncover the dark truth behind their father’s death.
  
  It’s kind of a shame how visually bland this show is given how stylized the source material is (from what I remember, it’s been a while), but the story is still compelling, the acting is decent, and they don’t shy away from how weird the keys are. And they only spend, like, one episode on the awkward high school love triangle, so that’s cool. It’s sort of Stranger Things Lite, which honestly is a bit more 2020-friendly than the real deal (see below)—though now that I think about it Locke & Key actually has a pretty high body count and some dark themes for a show that I was able to binge in a day without feeling emotionally burdened.
  
  
• Silicon Valley (Season 6)(HBO)
  Synopsis: Pied Piper finally succeeds at its wildest dream and the team saves the world—it’s just that those two things aren’t related in the way they’d want them to be.
  
  Honestly this would’ve been a pretty weak season if hadn’t been so short. As it is they build to the finale pretty quickly, and it’s a pretty great finale, so it’s easy to ignore some of the stepping-stones on the way there (Gilfoyle [Martin Starr] and Monica’s [Amanda Crew] B-plots are the obvious ones, and I’m on the fence about Gwart [Nandini Bapat]).
  

• Stranger Things (Season 3)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: Steve, Dustin, and Steve’s bored coworker Robin (Joe Keery, Gaten Matarazzo, and Maya Hawke) investigate Russian spies while everyone else has awkward romance problems.
  
  I never really got the point of Billy in Season 2, other than to be the obligatory 80’s bully, and I kind of assumed he would fade into the background this season. Not only did he not do that, but his and Max’s relationship ended up being one of the emotional cruxes of the season, which was a huge surprise, and even more surprising in that it worked. Though there are some political problems with this season, narratively it was pretty strong, and that finale is an impressive emotional rollercoaster.
  
  That being said I have a hard time seeing how Season 4 could be any good, for much the same reason I was wary of another season of GLOW. Unlike that show, though, we’d have to ignore the teaser at the end if we wanted to consider the character arcs wrapped up, so as long as that’s canon I guess there has to be another season.
  

• Tuca & Bertie (Season 1)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: Bertie (Ali Wong) struggles to balance her career, her passion for cooking, and her relationship with Speckles (Steven Yeun), while her best friend Tuca (Tiffany Haddish) deals with her newfound sobriety, her lack of steady employment, and not having Bertie all to herself.
  
  The writing and acting are great, but what puts this show over the top is Lisa Hanawalt just going all out with the animation. While Bojack Horseman (where Hanawalt served as production designer and co-executive producer) was relatively grounded visually, Tuca & Bertie takes full advantage of the fact that it’s animated, and pushes the medium to the edge of coherency in the best way possible. Petty things like physics and geography might be problems to solve on other shows, but here everything is subverted by the needs of the story, driven as much by the character’s emotions as by any sort of plot logic. It’s difficult to explain just how good it is without getting into specific examples that won’t really make sense, so you should just watch it. There is a *teensy* bit of grody body horror stuff for some reason, but if I could get through it you can too.
  
  Anyway, it’s an amazing, innovative show, so of course it was canceled after the first season. BUT in a rare twist it was picked up by Adult Swim, so that’s cool.
  
  
• Undone (Season 1)(Amazon)
  Synopsis: Alma (Rosa Salazar) gets in a car crash after seeing her dead dad (Bob Odenkirk), and when she wakes up she finds that he’s still there, and needs her help.
  
  Oh hey, it’s the other post-Bojack show, this one from Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy. A quieter, more atmospheric show than I was expecting, but not in a bad way. The story is compelling even if it doesn’t get very far in the first season, focusing much more on backstory and character development. What keeps it from dragging is that these are parsed via the supernatural elements of the show (I don’t want to completely spoil it, but there is a time loop episode), so our protagonist is still doing things and progressing even as we’re seeing what are essentially glorified flashbacks. Ultimately your enjoyment of the show will likely come down to how you feel about rotoscoping (a la Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly), and I happen to like it.
  
  This is another show (I don’t know if it says more about me or about the shows that there seem to be so many of them) where I’d probably be fine if this were the last season, and if the show does continue (it hasn’t been canceled, but these are uncertain times) I hope it either digs into the plot more or ditches the plot and doubles down on the character-driven stories.
  
  

Best Shows of 2020

• Archer (Season 11)(FX)
  Synopsis: Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) wakes up from his 3-season-long coma to find that without him the team has become…functional?
  
  I’m conflicted about this season. It’s not a bad season, in and of itself, with a few standout episodes that are the best the show’s been since the first coma season. But it is kind of disappointing, especially considering the show is probably winding down, that almost every bit of character development that happened while Archer was in his coma gets reversed by the middle of the season. Rather than actually explore how Archer can fit in with the new dynamic, the writers just keep poking and prodding until everything looks exactly how it did 4 seasons ago. For a show that’s already shown its premise is infinitely malleable, it would be nice if they stretched themselves along the other axis now that we’re back to the familiar setting.
  
  
• Avenue 5 (Season 1)(HBO)
  Synopsis: A malfunction causes a space cruise ship (cruise spaceship?) to veer off course, increasing the length of its trip from two months to three years. Hilarity ensues.
  
  It’s In the Loop (or The Thick of It if you’re a nerd) in space and also not about politics. Despite being an extremely funny show with an amazing cast (especially Hugh Laurie, Suzy Nakamura, and Zach Woods) it has not, at time of writing, been cancelled, so fingers crossed we actually get another season.
  
  
• Bob’s Burgers (Season 10)(FOX)
  Synopsis: Bob Belcher (H. Jon Benjamin) just wants to run a successful restaurant but keeps finding himself drawn into the antics of his wife Linda (John Roberts), their kids Gene, Louise, and Tina (Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal, and Dan Mintz), his friend Teddy (Larry Murphy), and his landlord Mr. Fischoeder (Kevin Kline). This season those include a cardboard boat contest, a music store ban, and a fear of pooping in public bathrooms.
  
  Not the strongest season, but still pretty good. It’s a consistently good show. The end.
  
  
• BoJack Horseman (Season 6)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: BoJack (Will Arnett) tries to make peace with his past, Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris) tries to balance work and parenting, Diane (Alison Brie) tries to finally write for herself, Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) tries to keep his relationship from falling apart. and Todd (Aaron Paul) tries to deal with his parents who, it turns out, exist.
  
  I loved the first 8 episodes of Season 6. This is the show operating at its absolute best. The finesse with which they incorporate and subvert sitcom final season tropes, from the surprise wedding that turns into a farcical, one-sided game of hide-and-seek, to the triumphant return of everyone’s favorite assistant—it’s great. All of the characters are coming up against their greatest challenges, and for the most part that actually goes pretty well, but without it feeling cheesy and forced. Even with the looming threat of the reporters it still feels hopeful.
  
  And then there’s the second half of the season. And I’m very conflicted about it. I disagree with the choices they made. I would have preferred that BoJack actually recognize and take responsibility for his actions, rather than continue to run from them and be bitter about the public backlash. This is partially just personal preference, but also it seems weird for the final season to have the same structure as every other season, with BoJack starting high, going low, and then coming up a little at the end. It makes it feel like all that effort that he and those who care about him put into making him a better person just didn’t mean anything, which would almost be a justifiable if somewhat nihilistic conclusion if it weren’t for the fact that even at his lowest point he’s so obviously different than the BoJack we first met back in Season 1.
  
  And that’s not the only part of it that feels inconsistent. At the end BoJack is supposedly held accountable for “all of it,” but the way he talks about it doesn’t really feel like he’s taking responsibility. It doesn’t feel sufficient, and what’s more, by the show’s own admission it’s not sufficient. At the end of Season 5 Diane tells BoJack that no one can hold him accountable, that he’s only accountable to himself. That’s what led to him going to rehab, that’s the setup for Season 6, that exact sentiment. And it feels like the ending doesn’t live up to that. And maybe that’s intentional. Maybe we’re supposed to be disappointed in him, again. But that’s kind of depressing, because then it feels like not only was everyone on the show wasting their time with BoJack, but so were we.
  
  All that being said, I like where all the other characters ended up (Diane’s arc felt particularly well done), Will Arnett’s performance as Secretariat in “The View From Halfway Down” is absolutely heartrending, and the final scene of the final episode made me cry, so, like, it’s not a bad final half of a season. It’s just not the one I wanted. (I also feel I need to reiterate that this is a very funny show.)
  
  Also, as I was rewatching the show to lead into the final season, I finally caught on to the running gag with Mr. Peanutbutter’s friend Erica, and I’m glad I did because otherwise I would have been very confused by that payoff in the finale.
  

• Doctor Who (Season 12)(BBC1)
  Synopsis: The return of the Doctor’s greatest enemy forces her to reckon with a past she’d been forced to forget…and I guess the Cybermen are back. Woo.
  
  So aside from the last three episodes involving Cybermen, which at this point are probably the most overused and underdeveloped Doctor Who baddies (Oh no it’s the Cybermen, and this time they can move fast!), I really like the direction that finale went. While Chosen One narratives are a bit played out, if you’re going to have a de facto Chosen One character anyway, which The Doctor has kind of always been, you might us well come up with an interesting backstory, and boy did they do that. I also like what that did for The Master’s motivation (incidentally, the show has once again cast The Master perfectly).
  
  Overall this season was much more focused and confident than Season 11, and does a much better job handling the larger cast and giving all the companions equal time—except Graham, who really doesn’t need to be there anymore, and he’s leaving anyway.
  
  
• Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (Season 5)(TBS)
  Synopsis: News commentary and satire featuring Samantha Bee and correspondents.
  
  Full disclosure, at some point (I don’t know exactly when because time has collapsed in on itself) I kind of just started avoiding almost anything to do with contemporary politics or COVID-19, with very few exceptions. Full Frontal was on that list of exceptions for longer than a lot of other things, so I feel I should include on this list even though I can’t remember the last time I watched it. I think it was the episode Sylvan Esso was on, which was apparently in August.
  
  
• The Good Place (Season 4)(NBC)
  Synopsis: I still refuse to spoil this show.
  
  The Good Place is a rare and beautiful thing. It is a true work of art. The world is a better place with this show in it. Do yourself a favor and watch it (from the beginning, don’t start with Season 4, it will not make any sense).
  
  
• Harley Quinn (Season 1&2)(DC Universe, whatever that is)
  Synopsis: Harley (Kaley Cuoco) finally breaks up with Joker (Alan Tudyk) and starts her own gang, with the help of best friend Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), her plant Frank (J.B. Smoove), and new friends Clayface (Tudyk, again), Dr. Psycho (Tony Hale), and King Shark (Ron Funches).
  
  I’d seen positive reviews from a couple sources when the first season ran, but it was Renegade Cut’s 10-minute love-fest that finally got me to check it out. I don’t really have much more to say than what he did, but if you want to avoid the spoilers: Harley Quinn is a show about relationships. It values healthy, supportive friendships over toxic, abusive romance. Along with its heart it wears its politics on its sleeve, particularly in regards to feminism and anti-corporatism. It doesn’t glorify actually heinous acts, but does show that good people can do bad things. Also it’s very funny.
  
  What I would add is that it treats these familiar characters as actual human beings, without using their “mild-mannered alter-egos” (outside of a few flashbacks), and it does so within the context of their heightened, absurd universe, rather than some gritty pseudo-realist version, all of which is markedly different than the tentpole comic book media releases of the last couple decades.
  
  It’s a very good show and I don’t think you need to be that into DC to enjoy it, though it does help (especially in appreciating how the show subverts the usual portrayals not just of the villains but of the heroes as well. Jim Gordon is particularly delightful, and it’s definitely not a pro-cop characterization.)
  
  
• High Fidelity (Season 1)(Hulu)
  Synopsis: Following a rough breakup, Robyn “Rob” Brooks (Zoe Kravitz) decides to revisit all of her past relationships to figure out why they went wrong. Meanwhile she also runs a record store with her friends Cherise (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and Simon (David H. Holmes).
  
  Good show but Cherise was robbed. (No pun intended.) I mean, I’m not mad about Simon getting his own episode because who could be mad at Simon, but it’s very noticeable when he gets the spotlight and Cherise doesn’t, to the point that it’s actually jarring when episode 9 starts after the events of “Me Time”/“Ballad of the Lonesome Loser”. And then to not even give her her Barry Judd (Jack Black in the movie) moment—and it’s not just that it’s unfair that her movie counterpart gets a better climax to his arc than she does, it’s also sloppy, because the whole thing with her and Peachy & Shane gets completely dropped before it even starts. Given that that storyline would have been happening at the same time as “Me Time”/“Ballad of the Lonesome Loser,” it definitely feels like there’s a lost episode that either explains how the guitar becomes the fulfillment of Cherise’s character arc (though she still should’ve gotten stage time) or for which the guitar plot is a hastily contrived substitute.
  
  But yeah, otherwise a pretty decent show. I’m always a little ambivalent towards relationship drama, especially protagonists who just can’t decide between all of the nice folks and/or obvious assholes that keep flinging themselves at said protagonists, but at least everyone, even Rob on some level, is aware that she’s repeatedly making terrible choices. And I am glad that Rob (and Mac for that matter) doesn’t get a clean happy ending, ‘cause she’s got some work to do. And aside from the relationship stuff it’s a fun show, with the same music nerd vibe as the movie, but like, fun and healthy because it’s people discussing their passions, and it can get heated but it’s ultimately still respectful. I just went back and watched that first scene in the store from the movie, which beat-for-beat is fairly close to the same scene in the show, and holy crap is the movie version so much more toxic and abrasive and whiny and just…ugh. Cherise is less of an asshole than Barry which makes her obnoxiousness easier to handle, Simon is sweet and quiet but confident in his opinions, unlike milquetoast Dick, and Rob—well, Rob’s still a bit of a jerk, which is sort of the point, but also I don’t really have a problem with Cusak’s Rob compared to Kravitz’s. They naturally have different takes on the character and I think they both do a good job in the context of their respective works.
  
  Side note: I honestly can’t tell if the show wants us to think Liam (Thomas Doherty) is good. Because he’s not. He’s a discount John Mayer at best, and there’s no reason any of these characters should think he’s good. If it’s a joke then it’s not a very well-executed one, and if it’s not then either the people making the show about music nerds don’t actually know anything about good music, or a lot of things went wrong during multiple levels of the production process.
  
  
• Last Week Tonight (Season 7)(HBO)
  Synopsis: Synopsis: John Oliver does news commentary and satire and now Daniel O’Brien has won another Emmy.
  
  I mean it’s still a pretty good show, but it’s getting increasingly frustrating that he covers so many issues with capitalism but never makes the obvious connection and just treats them as isolated instances.
  
  
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Season 7)(ABC)
  Synopsis: The gang goes back in time, and then forward in time (as opposed to Season 5, where they did the opposite).
  
  If you have the time to kill, I recommend watching the first 9 episodes of the season all in one day. This covers most of the time travel hijinks and callbacks to previous seasons, and it’s generally a fun romp (7 & 8 get kind of dark, but 9 is a time loop episode, and it’s the best time loop episode).
  
  Next watch 10 through 12. These are more grim, and start actually progressing towards the finale where the previous episodes were just laying the groundwork. Also they kind of ditch the premise of all of the time travel episodes and watching them on their own makes it easier to ignore that.
  
  Next, if it’s been more than a few months since you watched season 6, rewatch it. Episode 13 connects back up to where the season 6 finale left off, so if you, like me, barely remember what the heck was going on back then, it’ll be helpful to have that context.
  
  Then there’s 13. With so many loose ends the climax was bound to feel a little rushed, and there’s some handwaviness and tension deflation that’s kind of inevitable for this kind of show—every previous finale has lead into the next big thing, and that keeps the momentum going, but when there is no next thing it falls a little flat. Some shows overcome this with a false teaser (this isn’t a TV show, but the ending of The Incredibles is a perfect example (or it was until the sequel anyway)), while other shows take the riskier path and end without tying up all the threads (Chuck comes to mind).
  
  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wrote themselves out of doing the former by saying this would be the team’s last mission, and I was really hoping they weren’t going to do the latter because inevitably it would have something to do with FitzSimmons and they. Have. Been. Through. ENOUGH. Fortunately, AoS took the third option, which is to accept that the plot’s going to feel a little unsatisfying and then focus on completing the character arcs satisfactorily and giving the denouement a real emotional impact. And that they do.
  
  Are there flaws in this season? You bet your butt there are. I’ll be the first to admit this show has never been perfect. But as the show broke away from the MCU and was able to focus more and more on its own ideas, it consistently produced innovative, compelling, emotionally resonant storytelling far beyond what the movies could ever hope to achieve, and at its best its flaws were because it was actually trying to be more than the sum of its parts, a task at which it often succeeded. They really put their all into this season, and that’s all I could’ve asked for.
  
  Side note: Could they not get Brett Dalton, or did they deliberately leave him out just to mess with us? Because in a season with multiple old characters returning and on a show where not one but two of the lead actors (Dalton being one of them) have died and come back as three different versions of their character, Grant Ward is noticeably absent, to the point that it feels like a joke. Not a criticism, just an observation.
  

• The Mash Report (Season 4?)(BBC2)
  Synopsis: It’s like The Daily Show but British. Hosted by Nish Kumar.
  
  I just wish this show had longer seasons. Six episodes a year is not nearly enough for a show this funny and sharp, with such a great diversity of voices, especially since I’ve pretty much stopped watching The Daily Show. Also when there are so few episodes in the middle of the year I kind of forget anything about them by the time I get around to writing this list and then I’m too lazy to go back and rewatch to I just use last year’s with a tacked on bit just to hang a lampshade on it.
  
  
• Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (Season 6)(Netflix)
  Synopsis: News. Satire. Cancelled.
  
  A good show gone too soon (likely due to Covid-19, though they did try to do a few audience-less episodes), but it still did better than The Opposition or The Nightly Show, so hopefully Minhaj won’t have too much trouble getting his next project going, whatever that ends up being.
  
  
• Rick and Morty (Season 4)(Adult Swim)
  Synopsis: There’s a heist episode, that’s also an anti-heist episode, but really just ends up being like a heist episode squared so joke’s on them. And other stuff happens.
  
  But man that heist episode. I felt so attacked and yet so catered to at the same time. The rest of the season’s pretty good too though.
  
  
• Star Trek: Discovery (Season 3)(CBS All Access)
  Synopsis: The Discovery crew arrives in the far future only to discover a galaxy torn apart by an event called The Burn: a mass explosion of dilithium that destroyed any ship with an active warp core all in one moment, leaving the survivors fragmented and with vastly reduced interstellar travel capabilities.
  
  Ok, so technically this breaks my rules because the last episode actually aired in 2021, but it’s only one episode and I don’t want to have to wait a whole year to include this on a list because DAMN THEY FINALLY DID IT.
  
  Season 1 of Discovery, despite having a great time-loop episode, was a hot mess, with a main plot that they abandoned halfway through, a whole villain twist thing that barely mattered, and an ensemble that never really came together. They also gave our protagonist, Michael (Sonequa Martin-Green), this whole guilt complex thing that never made sense to me and was really annoying.
  
  Season 2 was definitely an improvement, with a more coherent story (though lacking in thematic depth) and better consistency across episodes, but the addition of even more characters did not help with the ensemble problem, especially with two of those new characters, Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck), taking up a lot of screen time despite the fact they were only guests. The portrayal of Michael also continued to be really uneven, with the writers seemingly unsure what her defining traits were, and Martin-Green either deciding or being directed to play her as just really, unbelievably over-emotional, all the time.
  
  But Season 3. Holy crap. Though there were elements of the kind of high-minded, pointed social commentary that Star Trek has always been known for in the first two seasons, they tended to get bogged down in the convoluted plots. But here the story is clear as a bell, a story that gets at something so fundamental to the Star Trek universe that it often goes unremarked upon, but is certainly relevant to our times. And even as many of the characters are dealing with feelings of not belonging, of disconnection (oh hey the characters are engaging with the same theme as the main plot, isn’t that neat), the ensemble finally comes together, with far fewer instances of a character feeling superfluous or unjustly swept aside (despite the addition, once again, of two new major characters. It also helped that they ditched the only new character held over from Season 2 who kind of just started hanging around and I never really understood why we were supposed to care about her.) And to be fair, it all only works because of the first two seasons building up to it.
  
  To summarize: I think this is probably the Star Trekiest incarnation of the franchise in the last 20 years or more, and it’s pretty great. Although it took much longer to get here than Picard did (the final scene of Picard Season 1 is the same as the final scene of Discovery Season 3, and I feel like that says something), it was worth the wait, and all the more impactful for it.
  
  But yeah, I mean, in a couple months I’ll probably look back on it be like, “Eh, it was fine, I guess,” I don’t know, I just get excited sometimes, you know?
  
  
• Star Trek: Picard (Season 1)(CBS All Access)
  Synopsis: After meeting the daughter of an old friend, who then gets murdered by Romulan assassins, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (retd.) (Patrick Stewart) goes off in search of her twin sister, and answers to questions that have haunted him for years.
  
  The first couple episodes were a little rough. While the first one definitely grabbed me right from the start, it did have one glaring flaw. One of the main themes of the show is that synthetic lifeforms are people too, not objects to be used as tools and then tossed aside. So it’s especially egregious when the first synth character we’re introduced to turns out to just be a plot device which the show quickly kills off once she’s no longer useful. This would be lazy writing under most circumstances, but here it’s directly contradictory to the message the show is trying to convey, and suggests the writers are not really thinking that hard about what they’re writing. Also, by having so much excitement in the first episode, it really drags down the second episode, which does a lot more actual pilot-y work than the first.
  
  And that’s why I stopped watching for a while after episode 2. The pacing wasn’t there to keep me interested, and I didn’t have confidence in the writers’ abilities to handle the themes of the show well.
  
  But eventually I came back and I’m glad I did because episodes 3-7 are actually pretty good. The new characters are immediately engaging (enough so that I forgot nothing actually happened in episode 3), the old characters aren’t just there for nostalgia’s sake and none of those actors feel awkward even after so many years, and the main cast comes together as a believable ensemble really quickly (something Discovery was still working on after two seasons). The character arc for Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), specifically starting in episode 5, initially put me off because I really liked her character and didn’t agree with the direction they took her in, but it didn’t go the way I expected and I actually found it to be pretty compelling. Despite the apocalyptic stakes and a couple visceral murders, the story is less grim-dark and much more of a fun, swashbuckling adventure than I was expecting, which was refreshing.
  
  The two-part season finale is, disappointingly, a big boring pile of stupid. The main plot becomes a series of predictable beats that don’t feel particular to the show in any way, and in the end just kind of fizzles out. It’s less that the climax is satisfying and more that it’s inevitable because the plot isn’t complex enough for it to go any other way. Also, the antagonists’ character arcs don’t really go anywhere—one is killed by a character she just met who’s not even related to her mission but just happens to be there, one just leaves without any consequences, and two are incapacitated during the climax and are never mentioned for the rest of the episode, leaving it unclear if they’re dead, imprisoned, escaped, reformed, or what.
  
  In general, as with the first season (well, really, first two seasons) of Discovery, it feels like the plot was just a way to set up the characters and the world that they wanted for the next season. What makes it better than (the first 2 seasons of) Discovery is that they actually do a good job of that—the characters (or more specifically, the protagonists) completely carry this show, and they’re good enough to bear that burden. And none more so than Patrick Stewart, who infuses Picard with much more nuance than TNG ever had room for. It’s been 18 years since he last took on the role, and yet it’s as if he’s been living as Picard that whole time. It’s a brilliant performance that deserves a better character arc than he gets in this season.
  
  Overall, I can unreservedly say that Picard is a decent show (especially if you don’t dig too deep into the allegorical messaging because it’s a little bit problematic) and I’m looking forward to season 2.
  
  
• Staged (Season 1)(BBC1)
  Synopsis: Director Simon Evans (Simon Evans) tries to get actors David Tennant (David Tennant) and Michael Sheen (Michael Sheen) to use their lockdown time to start rehearsing a play so they can be the first production on stage once the lockdown is lifted. The actors, however, spend most of their time doing literally anything else.
  
  A fun show. If you like Tennant and Sheen you’re sure to enjoy it.
  
  

Honorable Mentions

• Billions (Season 5)(Showtime)
• The Blacklist (Season 7)(NBC)
• Penn & Teller: Fool Us (Season 7)(CW)